thINc360: The Healthcare Innovation Congress 2024 Key Takeaways

Posted in AI Healthcare

The energy at thINc360 2024 drew over 900 healthcare leaders and decision-makers interested in finding and sharing state-of-the-art healthcare innovation, which was nothing short of stimulating! Folio3’s team reviews the key takeaways from the Healthcare Innovation Congress.

How do you sum them up in one article? Let’s give it a try.

Aligned with the thINc360 2024 theme of “Healthcare Cost and Artificial Intelligence,” It’s safe to state that artificial intelligence in healthcare sparked the most debate.

Which AI Innovations Took the Spotlight at thINc360 2024?

AI for Enhanced Patient Engagement Experience and Personalized Support

AI for enhanced patient engagement experience and personalized support was the talk of the town. This refers to patient experiences that are easy to navigate and leave a lasting personal impact, allowing them to come for more. Unfortunately, today’s care delivery system fails on this front. Why? Because of the plethora of manual workflows involved.

The healthcare patient journey often entails scheduling, referrals, billing, payments, credentialing, and triage. To better assist patients in navigating this health ecosystem, AI can facilitate a myriad of data points and automate the interactions among each journey. These areas add to patient frustrations and present a great opportunity for AI to improve patient experience. An efficient, valuable, and differentiated patient engagement experience marks the top priority for the care delivery teams.

Manual workflows are huge inhibitors of engaging patient experiences, a recent physician sentiment survey published by Athenahealth enlightens that “93% of U.S. Physicians Surveyed feel burned out on a regular basis and 8 in 10 physicians look to AI to improve outcomes, enhance patient engagement and provide personalized support”.

Ayble Health, Advocate Health, and Genmab were some of the main platforms regarding these solutions. It’s more than just the workflows now, AI has blossomed in the field of clinical trials, a novel way of improving patient experiences with medicines. Discovering disease targets and designing product candidates takes years and countless iterations. AI is being used to help streamline the process of target identification and product candidate design, intending to significantly enhance the speed, quality, and differentiation of our medicines.

thINc360 Highlighted the Predictive Analytics, Digital Health, and AI to Transform Health and Enhance Patient Care

Predictive analytics is another feather of AI innovation in the healthcare industry. Using predictive models and data-driven insights, healthcare organizations can predict potential health concerns before they even exist, preempt the future needs of their patients, and identify patterns in population health with unparalleled speed and precision.

It’s all about harnessing historical and real-time data to forecast future events and identify trends related to patient care. Fundamentally, the purpose of predictive analytics in healthcare is to address the essential query: “What might occur in the future? By examining extensive datasets, which encompass medical histories, genetic data, and lifestyle elements, predictive models can spot recurring patterns and tendencies. This allows healthcare professionals to foresee possible health problems, forecast patient results, and actively strategize preventive measures.

There are various use cases for predictive analytics in healthcare, which include early detection and preventive measures, personalized and precision medicine, resource optimization and cost reduction, clinical decision support, and population health management.

One of the solutions that attracted a lot of gazes was Delorean Artificial Intelligence Inc. They predict disease onset and progression. The first AI in the world to be biologically validated by multiple independent 3rd party labs, deployed at 14 clients, including a Fortune 500 healthcare organization, and with the specialization in five modules: Renal disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, behavioral health, and respiratory disease.

thINc360 Investor’s Perspective: Navigating the Digital Wave of Gen AI Adoption and its Impact on Healthcare

Generative AI in healthcare was valued at $1.07 billion by 2022 but it is projected to surpass $21.74 billion by 2032. AI is believed to automate administrative tasks, according to 72% of healthcare executives, freeing clinicians to focus on patient-related tasks. Gen AI is changing the way we diagnose and treat illnesses. Enhanced diagnostics is a crucial aspect of this technological advancement. Technology helps in the early detection of diseases. It can produce very complex images with very good quality. Generative AI isn’t just about tech, it’s also about healthcare. According to McKinsey, Generative AI could unlock a $1 trillion improvement in healthcare. 

Generative AI is a big deal in the healthcare industry. They include appointment scheduling, health monitoring, and the analysis of extensive patient data. This new technology is a great one for both patients and healthcare providers. 

Efficient Drug Discovery: Gen AI can look at a wide range of information from clinical trials, scientific literature, or other sources for drug discovery. This method helps in the discovery of drugs and anticipates the exact mechanism of action. New treatments are made more efficient and cost-effective.

Cost Saving: New technology can help healthcare and pharma companies save money. It anticipates when medical equipment needs maintenance, preventing unexpected malfunctions. This saves time and money by prolonging its life. It also increases the utilization of resources and efficiency. 

Regulatory Compliance: This technology can help you meet industry standards and regulatory compliance. This is a crucial element in ensuring proper documentation. It enables the automation of processes such as data collection and protocol compliance. AI in healthcare lowers errors and helps reduce errors.

Risk Mitigation: Generative AI in healthcare can help mitigate risks across different areas. It impacts patient safety, drug interactions, and adverse events. It does this by analyzing and executing data. Healthcare providers to take preventive actions to prevent problems from happening. This reduces the chance of mistakes. It also helps businesses protect their reputations.

Resource Allocation: Gen AI can allocate resources to analyze patient data. These apps can also check treatment plans and resources. It determines the most effective utilization of resources, including staff, equipment, and facilities.

The Startups That Made Rounds at thINc360

Sensi AI

Sensi.AI at thINc360 showed how their product enables healthcare Payers and Providers to strengthen care delivery at home with their unique AI-audio assessment and prevention, 24/7, while preserving member dignity. With timely notification of physical and cognitive changes, stakeholders can intervene sooner to dramatically improve care outcomes and strengthen member satisfaction.

Sonde Health

Sonde Health is the global leader in voice-based health tracking and data insights. Sonde at thINc360 showcased their vocal biomarker API/SDK that serves enterprise apps and devices by identifying or alerting people long before symptoms arise, spanning organizations in population health to consumer wellness. Leveraging a best-in-class voice data set and clinical research with over 1.2 million samples from 85,000+ individuals on four continents, Sonde uses advanced audio signal processing, speech science, and AI/machine learning to sense and analyze subtle vocal changes due to changes in a person’s physiology to provide key insights into health and well-being.

PainTrace

PainTrace led by Deborah Dullen at thINc360 showcased a wearable monitor for qualitative and quantitative monitoring of acute and chronic pain in multiple species including canine, feline, equine, livestock, and humans. It comes with speech-to-text note-taking and telemedicine capabilities.

A New Buzzword at thINc360 was “Home Hospital”. Technologies to Keep the Patients in Check from Remote Places for Preventive Care Measures

Hospital at home is the new addition to healthcare which is changing the overall concept of care delivery network. Here’s how technology plays a key role in keeping patients in check remotely for preventive measures:

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

The healthcare leaders at thINc360 indicated that it is the core of hospital-at-home as it will provide the much-needed structure of care as well as serve as the foundation of daily care and treatment. The RPM pulls data from wearable devices such as smartwatches, blood pressure cuffs, and other sensing devices, yielding information about vital signs, heart rate, oxygen, etc.

This information is sent safely to healthcare professionals so that patients can be managed from afar and instantly.

Telehealth

Telemedicine focuses on remote monitoring and diagnosis whereby doctors can examine, treat, and consult with patients via video calls. This is because they can locate them easily for such check-ups, modify the dosage of the drugs, and discuss how to prevent more severe illnesses.

Ambient Monitoring

This remains an increasing technology strategy in-home care where it relies on sensors to monitor a patient’s movement, sleep, and falls. Changes occurring to the normative functions may help alert healthcare providers on some issues requiring interferences.

Closing Remarks on thINc360

thINC360 2024 focused heavily on the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to revolutionize healthcare and cost competitiveness. From improving patient experiences through automation to early disease detection with predictive analytics, AI and cost-effectiveness were major themes. Generative AI’s potential to transform drug discovery, reduce costs, and improve resource allocation was also a key takeaway. The conference highlighted promising startups leveraging AI in remote patient monitoring and in-home care.

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